8 Ways to Manage Your Time at the Office

We have 24 hours a day, but everybody manages those hours differently. Some people are more productive than others. If you feel like you're not productive, you should probably try to manage your time better.

Control where and how you spend your time and take actions to reduce or eliminate time wasters. These are the ten ways to take control of your schedule every day to make the most of the time you have available.

1) Prioritise your goals

Without goals, you tend to chase after whatever seems most urgent. You find that it's easy to get distracted. To stop this, figure out your true your priorities in life, and move towards them by setting yearly, monthly, weekly, and daily goals or desired outcomes. Rank each of these using the following system:

Importance: (A = high, B = medium, C = low)

Urgency: (1 = high, 2 = medium, 3 = low)

Always work on the most urgent and important goals and tasks (A1) first, and then move on down your list.

2) Follow the 80/20 rule

The “80/20 Rule,” also known as Pareto’s Principle, says:

80% of your results come from 20% of your actions.

It’s a method to view your time usage, prioritise your chosen tasks against your most important goals. Are you focusing in on the 20% of activities that produce 80% of your desired results?

3) Learn to say "No"

You may have co-workers requesting your help, but these tasks conflict with your most important goals. Especially when it's something you'd love to do, but simply don't have the time for, it can be very hard to say "No".

It's nice to be a team player, but you have to know when and how to be assertive and let them know you can't handle their request at the moment. If you do agree to take on the task, negotiate a deadline that helps them achieve their goals without sacrificing your own.

4) Use the “4D” system

Delete it: What are the consequences of not doing the task at all? Consider the 80/20 rule; maybe it doesn’t need to be done in the first place.

Delegate it: If the task is important, ask yourself if it’s really something that you are responsible for doing in the first place. Can you delegate these tasks to someone else? 

Do it now: Postponing an important task that needs to be done only creates feelings of anxiety and stress. Do it as early in the day as you can.

Defer: If the task is one that can’t be completed quickly and is not a high priority item, simply defer it.

Source: Wanderlust Worker

5) "Eat the frog"

From Brian Tracey’s book, Eat That Frog, "If the first thing you do each morning is to eat a live frog, you can go through the day with the satisfaction of knowing that that is probably the worst thing that is going to happen to you all day long."

Your frogs each day are the tasks that will have the greatest impact on achieving your goals, and the tasks that you are most likely to procrastinate starting.

6) Hold fewer meetings

Poorly run meetings are time wasters, multiplied by the number of people in the meeting. 

7) The Glass Jar: Rocks, Pebbles, Sand, and Water

Categorise your tasks in this way, then take down the “rocks” first. If you keep tackling the small things (the sand, pebbles, and water), and not the important strategic items, the rocks, then your jar will quickly fill up with no room for more rocks.

8) Take away electronic time wasters

Social media and emails can be very distracting. Stop checking them so often. You can set a time, then check and deal with all of them at once. Give yourself 30 minutes to check social media and emails and then get back on task. Otherwise, you can download app-blocking applications to stop you from subconsciously open these apps.  

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Source: The Balance Careers

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